Heaven Above
by GoWithTheFlo20
Summary: There was glass, and sand, and pain. That was how Harriet Potter died. Well, perhaps it was not death in the traditional sense, she did carry on, after all. Yet, Harriet Potter, the twenty-first century witch, died the day the Unspeakable shoved her into the shelf of time-turners. England and the Wizarding world would never be the same again. Thomas Cromwell/Fem!Harry. Strong M.
1. Chapter 1

**PROLOGUE:**

**Little Deaths and Little Time.**

* * *

_Harriet Potter's P.O.V_

There was glass, and sand, and pain. That was how Harriet Potter died. Well, perhaps it was not death in the truest form, it wasn't lasting in the traditional sense, she _did_ carry on, after all. There were many more years for her after that day. Many more wars, many more trials and games, losses and victories, courts and politics, even a husband and children. Oh, her precious boys, her cherished daughter, her dour, sour, dark husband… But that was later. Much later. Yes. She lived, but Harriet Potter, the name, the girl from the twenty-first century, died that day in a shower of glass, sand, and pain.

Death came in all forms, Harriet supposed. Death of relationships, old friends long neglected or gone. It had been months since Harriet had last heard from Hermione or Ron, despite the latter having graduated the same year of the Auror academy as her. They were all moving on with their lives now, branching out, spreading hatchling wings, and, in the excitement of all the possibilities not darkened by death and war, perhaps they had all forgotten how short their time really was.

Harriet would always regret not writing just one more letter.

Death of a trait, passivity felled to obstinacy. Surviving war tended to make the most stubborn of mules out of any tender, soft-spoken person. Harriet, dear, Gryffindor Harriet, with fire for a heart and a fork for a tongue, was anything but a quiet wallflower. Far removed was she from the stuttering, bruised and beaten girl locked in a cupboard she had once been.

There was only so many times a dog could be kicked before it bit back.

Death of a notion, the naive optimism of youth for a better, cleaner, nicer world, slain mercilessly by the realisation that people, in general, were absolute bastards, and would sooner cut your throat than offer a helping hand.

And then, perhaps the worst, there were the little deaths. A discarded principle in a time of crisis. A broken promise left shattered on the dreary path behind. The turning of a blind eye to one little slip. The day, every day, was filled with these little deaths. The problem was, Harriet discovered, people, herself included, did not see all these little death's until it was too late. Until, one soggy English morning, you awoke, dressed, caught your reflection in the fogged bathroom mirror and there, right there, staring back at you was someone you could not recognize.

But, then again, Harriet supposed little deaths were the work of an Unspeakable.

It was their job to convince the Wizengamot representative to hold back on pushing that new bill through the Ministry for just one more week, so, underboard, the opposition, for there was _always _opposition, could have a… Unhappy accident that would see them unable to vote in the following parliament. Perhaps it would leave them unable to vote in _any _following Wizengamot. Unhappy accidents, in the end, had the horrible habit of turning into _permanent _accidents. Just ask poor Marigold Hogsbawm…

Or, his grave, that is.

It was their job to quell any rumbles of an uprising or alliance between magical creatures because, with the waning populace of the wizarding world due to Voldemort's war, a unionized front of magical creatures was, indeed, a real tangible threat to the equally weakening control wizards had over their world. All it ever took was a few whispered words in the right ear, in the right inn, with the right tankard of beer. A rumour of Werewolf's feasting on Veela. The gossip of a Centaur abducting a harpy. The drunken slurred tale of a Mermaid drowning a Giant off the coasts of Dover last August.

People were so much more easily divided than they were united.

It was their job to make sure the cogs in the great machine kept running as they were supposed to. A greased palm here, for a Pureblood who wouldn't budge on a matter, a replacement there, for an upstart revolutionary Muggleborn going about things too fast for comfort, a tad of oil to slick the quick, and voila, another day turned in the wizarding world.

It was dirty, _dirty_ work. It was thankless. Their names were never recorded, undoubtedly not spoken, in no way knew apart from the Minister of Magic, who, upon being replaced, had the list wiped from his mind with a ceremonial Obliviate. Secrecy, in all its ugly glory, was exactly how they could do what it was they had to do. And _had _was the right term, definitely.

It was the Unspeakables who kept all in balance, kept the great clock ticking, kept things moving, never stagnating, so many wars averted by a drugged cup of tea, a spelled scroll, a misplaced letter. That was their _job_. Watch, listen, and when, and only when, it was necessary, act for the betterment by choosing the path of least destruction.

It was also an Unspeakable that killed Harriet Potter.

That particular day, at only seventeen years old, the day Auror Harriet Potter died, it was her job to patrol the Ministry. That was all. Nothing big. Nothing notorious. Fresh from her Auror training, perhaps a little too green, her assignments, for at least the next few months, would be mundane. Plain. _Easy. _Or they were supposed to be.

Luck was never on her side.

Harriet was reaching the lower bowels of the ministry when she spotted him. _The man._ He was standing with his back to her, staring at a high shelf reaching the vaulted ceiling at the very back of the antechamber she had meandered into, simply following the circuit the Auror's above had deigned to give her, hands shoved into the pockets of his tweed suit, and truly, categorically, nothing had been special about him.

He was a simple looking fellow, average in all aspects. Not particularly tall or short, neither here or there, no scars, no noticeable features of merit… Nothing. In fact, in time to come, even Harriet, who liked to think she had a remarkably good memory, would not be able to recall, precisely, his face. She would think, behind those hazy memories of this night, that he might have had thick, dark brows. Black. She would think he had her cheekbones, under a certain angle. And, furthermore, she was sure, as much as she could be, that she had seen his nose somewhere else.

Maybe in a museum somewhere?

It didn't really matter. She thought, possibly, that it all worked for the Unspeakables favour. Being able to blend so easily into the recess of memories that, even if they were ever to cross paths again, Harriet would not be able to point him out of the crowd, let alone fire a hex at his bloody face. Maybe, just maybe, his unremarkable visage was just that, a-notice-me-not charm, a glamour, something. Anything. You didn't exactly want to be pointed out from the crowd when your best work came from the shadows, did you?

So, no, Harriet did not know he was an Unspeakable at the time. She did not know what would come next, how much would change, how much _she_ would change. She didn't know much at all, honestly, as she marched towards him. Harriet only knew that, by the record on the parchment sitting pretty in her pocket, no one was supposed to be down here. Unfortunately, it was her job to fix that.

"You're not supposed to be down here. I need you to leave."

This would be the fifth wizard she had to move along tonight. They were always going where they weren't allowed. Peeping into alcoves to spy. Tottering into offices to pilfer news or leave a bribe in a hefty velvet pouch. Slithering into record rooms to flip through this or that deed they thought they could nab innocuously. Normally, when she caught them, they blushed, blubbered out some weakly thought excuse, and dashed right back out the room, afraid to face an Auror, let alone the Girl-Who-Lived-To-Become-Everyone's-Pain-In-The-Neck.

This man didn't.

He glanced over his shoulder to her, and the flickering amber light from the candles hovering in the air, high by the ceiling, bleached his glasses white, hiding those shifting eyes of his. For a glimpse, one moment, Harriet thought they might have been pitch black. Or highland green. How they could seem to be either, both simultainoulsy, was beyond her. But they did. They fucking did. However, he did smile then, softly, lined with age.

"Right on time. Grandfather always said you had a knack for timing in the worst possible way. Drove him half insane, I'm sure. Sorry about doing all this again, but, well, things haven't exactly turned out how they were supposed to, you know? No. If things had been right, you wouldn't have been born again, and I would not be standing right here to start the cycle off once more."

Harriet's wand was now in her hand. The stiff, polished wood cold courage in her palm. No matter what he looked like, some Oxford Professor of Anthropology come ambling free into the Wizarding world, how politely he spoke, a hint of a South London accent, she could never shake Moody from growling in her mind. Constant vigilance and all that jazz.

"Excuse me?"

Still, instead of acting, of marching right on over, sticking her wand point at his jugular, and parading him back out the room, Harriet found herself scowling, interrogating with a rough voice. He took a step to the right, as easy as a summer breeze, not a whiff of weariness or rigidity to his form, slinky and slow. Harriet, in contrary reflection, took a quick shift too, back straight, tight, locked, fingers stroking wand in a drum of three. Something… Something wasn't quite right here, and that was beyond the man's incomprehensible rambling.

"No, I doubt you would understand… Not right now. Even if you did, I don't think you would thank me for it. But you will. All you need is a little time… Funny that."

Another step, another reflection.

"I have no bloody idea what the hell you are talking about, but you need to follow me. Now."

The man paused for a moment. Harriet would always remember that. Not because there was dread or fear, or even the rush of adrenaline of an oncoming fight, but because, idly, she remembered her gaze drifting down, to the handkerchief pocket of his tweed suit, and she recalled spotting the gold thread stitched proudly, lovingly, across the fold.

_H. Cromwell. _

"Tell me one thing. Just one. Is this where you really saw your life going? Following orders given from upon high, snuffling routes like a blood hound, playing safe for the sake of it? No, that's definitely not how Grandfather described you at all. You fought so long and so hard, killed the greatest Dark Wizard of our time, thanks for that by the way, and for what? To play lackey to a corrupt, decrepit ministry? No, no, no. This was never how it was supposed to be."

Right. Well… The bloody bugger was off his rocker, wasn't he? Grandfather's and time, ministries and lackeys, he'd obviously either been too much in the Gin down at Hogsmeade, or he had bumped his head. Worse, the poor bastard could have wandered out of St. Mongo's.

"I don't know who you think you are but-"

He took a quick step forward, Harriet skidded back, wand raised. Ready. Still, nothing else came. No blow. No spell. Just more confusing, jumbled words that meant nothing to Harriet.

Not on that night, at least.

"It doesn't matter who I am. It never will. It matters who _you_ are. A fighter. A strategist. A woman who doesn't give up until the right thing is, and has, been done, no matter the cost to herself. Yes… Yes. You'll do nicely. I'm afraid there's no other way. It's already been done, after all. Hopefully, this time, you won't get your head lopped off. Please, Gran-… Miss Potter, remember to watch that Seymour more closely. He is a very tricky fellow."

Gradually, so sluggishly, Harriet used her free hand to reach into her back pocket. Fingertip brushed gold, and with a thought, the coin heated up. Within minutes, more Auror's would be down here, hopefully before Harriet had to fire a spell, and all this strange talk, strange eyes, and strange names could be forgotten about. She could go on, carry on her petrol, return to her lonely, empty home, sleep and start the day all over again. She just needed to buy a little time.

"And what exactly is it you think I will do?"

There was that smile again, soft with age but sharp with wit. As if this man knew something no one else did.

"Why, set it all right, of course! Muggles against Wizards, Wizards against muggles, everybody against magical creatures, blood and war… Too much. You can fix that. Just… This time, watch out for Seymour. That's all. You can do it. I know you can."

Harriet tried to smile, she really did, but she thought it might have had more than a passing resemblance to a grimace. Where the hell was her petrol partner? He should have been here by now.

"That's a lot to resolve for one person. Let me clear out a weekend, and I'll see what I can do. However, for now, please come with me and-"

He cut her off.

"The wizarding world is a ship, Miss Potter. A galleon on the tumultuous seas of life. Unfortunately, long ago, our sails got ripped. Those ripped sails have sent us on a perilous journey into oblivion. A journey me, and my colleagues, could not fix until you came along. The anchor. What do you do to a ship that has drifted off course?"

For a lingering, drawn out moment, there was silence. Silence and Harriet's pounding heartbeat. She knew she should fight, take aim and fire, shout, do… Something, but she couldn't. She stood there, frozen, listening as if she was hearing gospel.

"You throw that anchor into the sea and you pray it can fasten you down."

Then he was upon her. Not with wand and magic, but with palm and shove. She went sailing back from the harsh push, right into the shelves she had been edging around, the shelves the man in front of her had lured her to, and then… Then there was glass, and sand, and pain, as the time-turners, she belatedly realised what they were in the dim light, broke around her, through her. There was a sickening crunch, a horrendous pull to her stomach, the world lurched and there, through it all, she heard the man chuckle.

"Anchor him, Miss Potter. Save him, and save Britain, and in so, the wizarding world. Good luck."

* * *

**A.N: **So, I was chatting with my friend, who also writes fanfiction, and we were talking about the most outlandish Fem!Harry pairings we could come up with. I, jokingly, said Thomas Cromwell from the Tudors. She then dared me to give it a try, and, well… Here we are kiddos! This is a product of a dare gone wrong lol.

That being said, it has been fun exploring this, and I am going to try, really try, to make it as realistic as possible. I hope, even if it's just a little bit of it, you will enjoy what's to come, as I've spent way, way, _way_ too long planning this bloody thing out lmao.

**Tag's: Thomas Cromwell/Fem!Harry Pairing. **Strong Henry VIII/Fem!Harry FRIENDSHIP. Strong Anne Boleyn/Fem!Harry FRIENDSHIP. Age-gap between main pairing. Wibbly Wobbley Timey Whimey stuff. Strong AU for both Tudors and Harry Potterverse. More to be added later.

**For those who have read my other work: **I just want to let you know new chapters are coming, I have been working on my other stories, but I am back at Uni now and spare time has become sparse. The only reason this is being published is because I've spent a long time on it, started it long before I went back to uni, and already written up to chapter twelve. I'm sorry for the delay, and thank you all for your patience, but I hope you will enjoy this in the mean time while I work on my other stories.

**If you liked this, please drop a review**, as it keeps the inspiration going, me posting and everybody happy lmao.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER ONE:**

**Decidedly Disastrous.**

* * *

_In the beginning, I will admit, I was a bit dim. To be frank, what happened in the bowels of the Ministry that night remained hazy for a long while afterwards. I only seemed to remember fractions, little shards of glass, and could not quite recall the full reflection. I want you to know that. If I remembered what that man had warned me of, what he bade me to do, I think things would have turned out very differently. Instead, I remembered very little, and in so, in trying to piece it all together, I may have done some rather unwise things. _

_Perhaps dim is not the right word, but, as your father knows all too well, I can be stubborn and exceedingly foolhardy when the mood strikes. As he would further attest, I was no more obstinate and reckless as I was than in those beginning months. Your poor father had to put up with so much… Perhaps he is equally as dim then, for loving someone like me. No. I could never say that about your father. Merlin knows he has enough brains for the both of us, he is such a clever man, and perhaps, we balance each other out. He the mind, and I the heart. And, if this is so, perhaps it is best to both be merry fools in love. _

_Still, waking up to a strange world, to strange people, in a strange time, I beseech anyone to not become a little bit stupid. Back then, in those first few tender months, I was only sure of three things. Someone had tried to murder me. The only hint to make sense of this unholy mess was the name Cromwell. And, most importantly, I needed to get home. _

_Blame all of what came next on the Duke of Richmond._

_~Lady H. Cromwell's Diary; 1538._

* * *

_Harriet's P.O.V_

Harriet dreamed of roses. Fields of them, as far as the eye could see, kissing the horizon with honeyed pecks of adoration. Red and rich, white and pure, swaying in the wild wind as the petals were blown loose to dance away into the night.

It was a pleasant dream, to be sure, these fields of roses. The sweet sent dappled comely in the air, the moon was swollen and fat, and under the cold light of the stars, Harriet was sure she could see a thousand eyes staring back. There, beneath this canopy of stars, scented with these lush roses, blanketed in the fields, a lioness and a crow danced and hawked and played and-

And then she blinked awake.

Harriet came too in a short, sharp drop. Woozy. Dazed. Breathless. She felt as if she was entirely boneless, or, perhaps, too full of bones, taut and tense, and utterly immobile for a terribly frightful moment. It was not like waking up from a nightmare, for, after a beat or two of a heart, realization would sink in and calm would settle. No, this felt as if she was waking up _into _a nightmare.

Then again, that could be the two, huge, glistening boggled eyes staring right at her that made her feel that way.

"She lives yet!"

The bellowing voice belonging to those awful eyes hollered. Harriet jolted up from the pillowed bed she had been sleeping on, nearly headbutting the man who had been hovering over her, the crushed velvet sheets falling to her waist in a tangled heap in her haste.

"Fuck!"

She swore, as the man pulled his strange, layered glasses of the bridge of his nose. His eyes returned to normal now, not magnified by glass, and, staring at her, Harriet saw a phantom of her own father. Onyx curls peppered with salt by age, dark eyes that twinkled, and dimples lined the fine high cheeks.

Yes, she thought, she was staring at her father if he had lived an extra thirty-years. Another voice, cultured and gentle, spoke up from the shadowy doorway across the room, strewn with indignation and barely suppressed irritation.

"Hardwin, be still and calm! You are scaring the poor lass!"

The man, this Hardwin, Harriet thought she might recognize the name, stood up from her bedside, and turned to grin at the woman entering the room. Now, for someone who had grown up in the Wizarding world, who had seen doilies used as hats and rubber ducks as belt buckles, even Harriet could rightly say these two made a very, very peculiar picture.

Hardwin, decked in velvet and gold, bathed in hues of blue and black, seemed to be wearing some sort of… Shorts. Puffy, capped at the knee, ending in… Tights. Yes, black tights. His shirt, if it was such a thing, had sleeves as bloated as his trousers, heavy shouldered, tied with ribbon as if the sleeves could be detached, cinched at the bicep with bands of woven gold. Upon his head, sitting wonkily, was a little cap, plumed with peacock feathers that nearly touched the low beam of the ceiling. He was a tall man, impressive even in his older years, flushed and lively.

The woman looked to be something straight off the cover of those tacky romance novels her aunt Petunia had always read. Her long blonde hair was brushed to a gleam, falling down her back in soft waves, made almost a blinding white by the deep crimson velvet of her tight bodice dress. Nevertheless, if Harriet thought this mans sleeves seemed to be bizarre, this woman's was odder. The furred cuff very nearly reached the bloody floor! And how many fucking skirts was she wearing to get that width? She too, wore a strange hat… A band? It crowned her head in a river of pearls in a raised flare, a sheer veil fluttering down the back of her head.

"Scaring? Me? Why, not at all! No woman in all of England has ever gawped upon my handsome face and touched fear! Oh, dear wife, you wound me so."

The woman, Hardwin's wife, in that magnificent dress, came gliding in as if she did not walk but floated, tastefully chuckling at her husbands dramatic hand clutching at his chest, sidling up to him as she slapped his elbow. She too was in her later years, but no less beautiful. Some people were like that, Harriet found. Age adding a substance and grace that outshone some waxed youth and jaunty freckle.

Harriet only got more scars the more her years climbed.

"Now, Hardwin, pride comes before the fall."

Hardwin scoffed and tugged on the hem of his top, nose trailing high into the air.

"Poppycock."

Barely remembering something about tweed suits, sand and pain, Harriet scuttled off the bed as if a hell hound was snapping at her heels, down the bottom, away from the man and woman as she darted to the far wall, the couple were now blocking the door, pressing her back against the dark wood, eyes flittering this way and that.

She did not recognize the room.

It was big and grand, adorned with plush tapestries of gardens and lakes, rugs of fur, deer she thought, and furniture made from russet wood. Real wood. Not the kind from flat-packs you picked up from Ikea. The hearth by the four-poster bed, canopied in green silks, was a blackened mouth yawning into the room from a stone gape, a jolly, warm fire raging at its tongue.

No. She definitely wasn't in Hogwarts.

"Who are you? Where am I? What in the name of Morgana is going on?"

Her voice was pitched too high, nearly strangled in panic, and no matter how much she gulped, how much air, blisteringly hot, she tried to suck into her quaking lungs, Harriet couldn't seem to get a grasp of herself. She thought she remembered glasses in candlelight, a deep voice, black, or was it green, eyes, something about the sea and anchor and then… Then pain, so much pain, the kind that leached everything away until you were only left with the light of it, and everything else a ghost.

Had… Had someone tried to kill her?

_Again? _

The woman smiled delicately at her, slipping her nimble, thin hands into the outrageous sleeves of her dress. However, the man's smile was wide, toothy, almost shockingly large. He took a lone step forward, bent deeply at the waist, kicked one leg out straight, and doffed his cap at her in a flurry of blue-green feather. The pattern of the peacock made his hat look as if it was staring straight into Harriet's soul.

"I, dear girl, am Lord Hardwin Potter of Stinchcombe. This is my endlessly-charming wife, Lady Lolanthe Potter of Godric Hallow, and you…"

Hardwin peeped up from his bow, bright, dark eyes locked onto hers.

"You are a Potter too!"

Oh… Bugger. Hardwin Potter? Lolanthe Potter? _Potter?!_ She knew those names. Knew them as well as Malfoy would know Abraxas or Multoire. These… These were her ancestors. Her real, flesh and blood, and so painfully alive, ancestors. But how… The pain… Sand and glass, the feeling of whirling and churning. _Time-turners_. Harriet remembered them now. That bastard in the ministry had shoved her into a shelf of time-turners.

_Bad things happen to those who meddle with time. _

Isn't that what Hermione always said? Wasn't that the dire warning Dumbledore had given them that fateful night in the hospital wing? Nothing good could ever come from time-travel. Well, they had saved Buckbeak, her godfather, Sirius Black, but, again, she supposed a few hours had nothing on going back, what? A whole fucking century? Dear lord... Two Centuries? More? And then his words, his exact words, caught up to her sluggish, panicking mind.

_You are a Potter too! _

Harriet tensed, her voice dropping low. Slow. Dangerous.

"How do you know that?"

If nothing good ever came from those who meddled with time, Harriet could personally attest that even worse came from people knowing her name on sight. Hardwin stood tall, shoving one hand through the placket of his thick shirt, looking all the more like one of those pretentious paintings of a war general in repose.

"I was minding my work, as one should, down in our apothecary, and then… BANG!"

Harriet jumped as Hardwin stomped hard on the wood floor unexpectedly. Hardwin laughed heartily, full of teeth and dimple, before Lolanthe, less gentle and indulgent this time, smacked him up the back of his head, forcing a hiss out the man as he went to rub at his wild curls.

"You appeared upon our floor, bleeding and unconscious, in a pile of wood, glass, and what I can only assume to be sand. What my husband, in all his theatrics, forgets to explain is our home is warded. Very strongly. No one but those of Potter blood may come and leave as you did."

Whatever sting or ache Hardwin had gained from the cuff to his head outwardly evaporated as he was back to grinning that, if Harriet was honest, and perhaps Snape was smiling down upon her now for thinking such a thing about another Potter, irritating and infuriating smile. He took another step forward, closing in on her, and Harriet, on instinct, went to back away, only for a sharp pain to nip at her ankle as her heel thwacked against the skirting board.

"Do not think so little of me, dear girl! I would know my own blood if it were to cross my path! And that hair! The curl, the cheekbones, the nose! A blind man could see the Potter in you! Although, the colouring is off… Where did you get such red hair and green eyes?"

He took another step closer, almost bowing again as he leant in, obviously trying to get a closer look at this 'such red hair and green eyes' on a far shorter Harriet, when Lolanthe, Merlin bless her, sighed heavily. Exasperated. She reached out abruptly, clutched at the back of Hardwin's high neck collar ending in a frilly white lace, and yanked. Hard. He very nearly fell on his arse backwards, if it weren't for Lolanthe taking pity on her over-exuberant husband last second and balancing him on her side before he could topple.

Was this what her mother and father had been like?

She hoped so.

She hoped not.

"What my husband means to say is, given our own lack of children, and the matter that Hardwin's brothers, Merlin bless their magic, have all passed from this world childless… How exactly has a Potter, one as young as you, have come to be standing before us?"

Wasn't that the hundred-pound question? How _did _she end up here? Oh, Harriet thought she knew the logistics of it. A shelf full of time-turners plus a madman who liked to push seemed pretty easy to add together, but… But why? Had he known there had been time-turners, or had it been an unhappy accident in trying to kill her? If not, why was he trying to kill her? If he did know…

Well.

Either answer, standing here, as she was, with her ancestors of all things, Harriet thought she had two choices. One; she could lie. She could, perhaps, make up some sob-story of an experiment gone wrong, a potion perhaps, and give her apologies before she tried to get the hell out of here. Then… Then she would be alone, in a strange place, no idea exactly where she was, _when _she was, but far away from the possibility of accidentally messing up timelines, or destiny, or fate, or history, or whatever it was that smarter witches and wizards would call it.

Or, she could tell the truth.

As little as the truth it was she knew. A man, a shelf full of time-turners, and the bid to kill her. That wasn't very much. Not much at all. They may not believe her; they could still cast her out. Then she would be exactly where option one would leave her. Yet, staring at the face of the man who resembled, both physically and in mannerisms, her father, from the stories she had heard at least, and the woman with the same grace and integrity Harriet had always imagined her mother to have, she felt a burning prickle along the thin skin of her left hand.

_I must not tell lies. _

Well, she had never been one for deceptions and deceits before, so why start now?

"I… I think someone tried to murder me."

Hardwin's face turned a horrid mauve as he floundered, looking like someone had just told him Merlin was, in fact, a muggle.

"Murder? How deplorable! And to such a young witch too! How old can you be? Ten-and-nine? Twenty?"

Harriet shuffled in her spot.

"I'm seventeen…"

Both Lolanthe and Hardwin frowned. Befuddled. Understanding her mistake, Harriet tried again.

"Ten-and-seven. Just this July passed."

If Harriet thought Hardwin looked awful in mauve, he looked utterly terrifying in the red flame of anger as he gestured broadly about him.

"Why I never! What wizard or witch worth their magic would attack someone so young and-"

Lolanthe, however quiet until this point, searched Harriet's face with a sort of melancholic eye.

"There is more, is there not?"

Harriet swallowed.

"The sand and glass… What year is it?"

Hardwin's ire waned, all hint or shine or dimple of a smile away, far away, and for the first time, Harriet got to look upon his face with no mirth. It did not seem right to see it that way. Bleak. Concerned. Grave. It was as if she was seeing the moon in the place of the sun.

"Tis 1533."

There it was.

_1533\. _

Clearly, that was undeniably more than just one century, wasn't it?

The room rolled around Harriet nauseatingly, and she thought something inside, deep within, buckled along with her knees as she slid down the wall at her back and crashed to the floor. _1533_. There was no other thought. Just four numbers. 1. 5. 3. 3.

Lolanthe loped towards her, falling to her side in a flurry of crimson skirts, but Harriet could not grasp at it, at anything, nothing but that damned number. 1533. One. Two. Three. Four. Four centuries and a half. Hands, smooth and tender, grabbed at her shoulders, tried to heave her up, but Harriet… Harriet was broken. Frozen. Lodged in a land of numbers and math, and the crippling weight they could mean. Nothing outside that meant anything.

She had never realised a number could be so heavy before.

"Hardwin, help me get the lass back to rest. She has gone ever so pale."

Harriet brushed the hands off her, shaking her head violently. No. This was wrong. All wrong. _So wrong. _

"This is wrong… All wrong… I shouldn't be here… I shouldn't…"

Another pair of hands joined the fray. They did no better in getting Harriet up from the floor.

"Girl, please, you are still ailing and your wounds are yet cured by our potions. If you extort yourself too much the lacerations will reappear. Come, rest, and all will be well come morn."

Perhaps it was the heat from the roaring fire, perhaps it was the potions Hardwin had spiked her with, perhaps it was the war drum of her heart that was echoing in her ears, or, perhaps, as it was often with Gryffindors, Harriet's temper snapped in a peal of spark and smoke. Everything was crashing down around her rapidly, irrevocably, up seemed to become down, and left was around, and the earth was shifting right out from underneath her feet, and there seemed to be no air getting into her lungs and… Fuck… The room was spinning so fast and-

"Well? Well! I'm Harriet Lillian Potter! I was born in 1980! _1980_! You're all supposed to be dead! I'm sitting with ghosts! How can anything be well or fine if I'm over four hundred fucking years in the past? Merlin… I think I'm going to vomit…"

Hardwin, as Harriet was beginning to suspect was just his nature, pulled back to rub pensively at his chin.

"Well… That is a bit of a problem."

A bit of a problem? A bit! It was… It was… Oh, sweet Merlin and Morgana, how was she going to get home? There was ways to go backwards, time-turners, potions and a few black-listed spells, but no other way forward. You simply had to… Live through the time gap. That was why Time-turners had been capped at going back one decade. One! This… This was four centuries! How was that even possible? What was she-

Lolanthe shook her, quite forcefully, by the shoulders.

"Look at me, breathe. In… Out… In… Out… That's it, sweet girl. Just breathe."

Harriet, who thought the only action, in that moment, she was capable of other than complete meltdown, stared into the hazel eyes of Lolanthe. It positively _burned _to breathe, but breathe she did. In. Out. In. Out. Gradual. Measured. Precise. Lolanthe pulled a hand away from Harriet's shuddering shoulder to rub lightly at her cheek, her smile ever so warm and lovely.

"There is no need to fear or fret. We will help you get home. We will _all _figure this out together, yes?"

Though a pit of sickness still wrangled her guts to squirming vipers, the room no longer span and, slowly but surely, Harriet found herself able to breathe without aid. Eventually, she nodded as best as her slumped form allowed her to.

"Why are you helping me? I'm nothing but a stranger to you."

Lolanthe pulled away, slipping a hand up into her draping sleeve anew, and there, from the depths of fur and velvet, she pulled out a stick. A wand. Harriet's wand._ The Elder Wand. _Harriet had not meant to keep it. Honestly. She had meant, with every fibre of her being, to snap the damned thing and throw it away. Far away. She had meant to shirk it off, this symbol of a war that had dominated her life, from cradle to grave, and not look back.

But she couldn't.

She didn't know why. She didn't want it for its power. She didn't want it for a symbol of victory. And she definitely didn't want it to parade it around. She just… Didn't want to forget. Harriet knew that sounded absurd. Ludicrous even. Nevertheless, with the ministry in full throttle to move forward and gloss over the greatest war to ever tear them asunder, with everyone grieving in silence, Harriet didn't have much. Just a name. A broken cottage. And now a wand.

Something she could hold and feel and, know deep down, this represented all she had fought so hard for. Life. Love. Family. In the knots of this stick of wood stood Sirius, Remus, Tonks, Dobby, her Father, Mother, all those lost so she may live.

She couldn't through that away.

Lolanthe plucked up her slack hand, placed the wand into her palm before she closed Harriet's fingers around it. Her hand did not pull away, instead resting to hold Harriet's.

"You may look like a Potter, but you have the Peverell red hair and carry my families wand. And if this is true, as I believe it to be, and you have… Come to us from another year, then you are one of us. _Ours_. We look after our own. You are family, and that means much to us."

The lack of shock, on Lolanthe and Hardwin's part, at Harriet's decidedly disastrous time travel, now made sense. _They already knew. _They had seen her Potter resemblance, saw her breach blood wards, spotted her carrying the Elder wand, a Peverell house symbol, and they had already put it all together.

"Of course we will! Now, why don't we go and-"

Harriet would never find out what Hardwin would say, or declare would be a better term, for, right then, there was a loud pop. A small house-elf, barely two-foot tall, stood hopping by the fireplace.

"Master, Mistress… There is a muggle meandering around your foyer. Do you wish for me to scare him off?"

Hardwin sighed.

"Again? No… No. Get one of the servants to send them to us. Make sure you're not seen."

With a snap and crackle of magic, the house-elf was gone. Lolanthe shuffled to a stand, blustering as she smoothed down her skirts before she took to helping Harriet to stand too.

"Is now the right time, Hardwin?"

Lolanthe asked with a pointed nod to Harriet. Hardwin's gaze followed, spotted Harriet in her bloodstained clothes, which must seem so odd to these people, and a blush bloomed on his cheeks.

"Oh, yes. Quite right! I forgot about you. Sorry, dear. Here, wrap this around you."

Shooting his hand out, the fur cloak resting on the back of the chair beside the fireplace zipped through the air. Harriet caught it before it could smack her right in the face. She scarcely managed to get the cloak over her shoulders before the door to the chamber creaked open, a maid's, who seemed to be covered in flour, head peeping through the crack with a sooty grin.

"Master, the Duke of Richmond is here to seek audience with you."

With a wave of his hand, Hardwin beckoned the guest in as Harriet clamped the rim of the cloak closed around her. The man who came in was… Something else. If Harriet thought Hardwin liked his gold, then this man, who was absolutely dripping in it, proved that Harriet, especially in this time, should not make any assumptions. No matter how small.

"My Lord Stinchcombe, Lady Stinchcombe, and…"

He said in a rather nasally voice as he too, as Hardwin had done, doffed his feathered cap and bowed with that outlandish leg extended. Nevertheless, as his voice, which reminded Harriet of a weasel, trailed off, she saw his gaze flitter and stick to her. She opened her mouth, ready to give her name, when she hesitated and stumbled. Hardwin, thankfully, came sweeping in with a heavy, warm arm slung about her shoulders as he jostled her into his side, grinning madly.

"This is our lovely daughter, Lady Helena Potter. She has just returned from being tutored in Calais."

The lie rolled of his tongue like honey. However, in a way, it was no lie at all, was it? She was their daughter, some eight times removed down the line. Merlin… These were her grandparents… No. Not right now. She was _not _going to go into another freefall of panic. If she was ever going to get home, which was better sooner rather than later, she needed to get her head in the game.

"Lady Helena Potter. I come bearing word from his Grace, the King."

Standing tall, which was measly compared to Hardwin's height, the man, Richmond, pulled out a scroll of parchment from the leather satchel hooked at his waist. Marching forward, he offered the scroll out to Hardwin with an over-exaggerated flare. The seal, a red blob of wax stuck with ribbon caught her eye.

A rose.

Hardwin snatched it, unceremoniously cracked the seal that had caught Harriet's attention, and began to scan the letter as Richmond droned on.

"To commemorate his Majesties most prosperous marriage to the Lady Anne Boleyn, he is holding revelries at the royal palace in Hampton. He would be delighted if Lord and Lady Stinchcombe, and I am sure if he had known of her existence, the Heiress Lady Helena, could participate… This time."

Hardwin waved the letter about as if it was a fencing blade, keen and glinting, and with it, he could battle the muggle right out the room.

"I am deeply aggrieved to inform you, and his Grace, that me and mine will not be able to attend… Again, as… As… As we have most pressing matters of Stinchcombe to attend to. You must understand, as Duke of Richmond yourself. Please give our congratulations to his Grace for his marriage, and inform your master, Thomas Cromwell, that we will-"

Hardwin's words bled away like ink in water, tainting everything murky. Thomas Cromwell. _Cromwell. _She saw it, the gold thread, so shiny and elegantly stitched, glaring back at her seconds before that indescribable pain. H. Cromwell. That was the name, was it not? _Cromwell._

The man who tried to murder her.

It couldn't be a coincidence, could it? No. Nothing in Harriet's life was ever coincidence. Even, by the off chance that it was, this, one paltry last name, Cromwell, was, maddeningly, infuriatingly, all Harriet had to go on. All she had in this mess to get home. She _couldn't_ let that slip by her.

So, with the fear of never getting home, of never seeing her friends again, of accidentally messing nearly five hundred years of history up, lighting her wings, bringing back that Gryffindor courage she was so renowned for, Harriet bit the bullet and stepped forward towards Lord Richmond with a smile on her face.

"Please… Tell his… His grace, the King, we would be overjoyed to attend and should be there… Thusly."

By Richmond's answering grin, the few Shakespeare plays Hermione had force-fed Harriet for the last couple of years seemed to come in handy and, thankfully, he understood her. Having just been offered exactly what he had come here for, without the need to argue or pressure Hardwin for hours more, the man bowed.

"Yes, my Lady. I will inform the King of your swift arrival at Hampton court, and the best rooms will be aired and awaiting you and your family. He will be most delighted to know the Stinchcombes will be present at such a prestigious event. Good day my Lord, Ladies."

And Richmond was gone, sweeping out the room in the flap of his cloak. As soon as the door closed, Hardwin whirled on her.

"Helena, what are you thinking! The muggle's are out of control! You know…"

Hardwin slanted down close, as if he was divulging some sort of state secret.

"I heard they _burn_ each other. Can you imagine? They tie each other to large rods of wood and set them on fire!"

Harriet, or Helena as Hardwin seemed intent on calling her, went to argue on instinct. Muggles did no such thing. It was simply the racism of pureblood dogma. Myths! But, then, as if she needed a memento, she realised she wasn't in 1990. This, possibly, was not some pureblood slur. This could be a very real, very terrifying threat.

Merlin, she wasn't in Kansas anymore.

Biting her tongue, she shuffled on her spot, feeling her cheeks puff with heat.

"I'm sorry. I wouldn't have normally done that; I didn't mean to impose and force… But… Thomas Cromwell-… _Cromwell, _that was the name of the man who tried to kill me. It can't be a fluke, can it?"

Hardwin searched her eyes for a long while, looking for what, Harriet did not know, but he soon found it, whatever it was, as he sighed softly and shook his head.

"No, no happenstance at all. Well, I suppose it has been _years_, decades even, since we honoured muggle court, and our time is due again. Those muggles do know how to make a marvellous feast, at least! Oh, I better get the servants to pack our clothes, and my apothecary books. Oh, they better not forget our star compass again, I have never-"

It seemed, to Harriet at least, that nothing short of total destruction could get and keep Hardwin's spirits down. As annoying as that could be, it was also half-way inspiring. He seemed a man of constant movement, constant thought and constant action. For, before he had finished speaking, he was already across the room and to the door, glancing over his shoulder to beckon Harriet and Lolanthe to follow.

"Come, come! We have much to do and prepare! We must find you a proper dress! You cannot go looking like a Yorkist peasant! Perhaps we should take my hunting gear, Lolanthe? I heard the muggle King likes a good hunt. This might truly be fun!"

Then he was clapping to himself, murmuring about more plans and more games as he threw the doors wide open, bellowing for the servants to help him pack, and to fetch this, that, and everything in between. In this madness, Lolanthe stepped close to Harriet's side, placing a warm hand on her cloaked shoulder. When Harriet peeked at her, she was greeted with that lovely smile once more.

"We'll get you home, I give you my word. Until then… Well, Helena Potter, welcome to the family."

* * *

**Woo or Boo?**

**A.N: **From what I understand of it, Lolanthe and Hardwin Potter are actual Potterverse characters, though it was Hardwin's father who was Lord of Stinchcombe, and are Harry Potter's direct ancestors, who would have been active in around the 1300-1400 and not the 1500, but well, I changed it up a little. However, if this is the slight change to canon that upsets you, I really would stop reading now as I'm going to be, basically, flipping everything on its head lol. Plus, I'm really, heavy stress on that word, messing with history too.

**UPDATES: **I am, hopefully, going to be posting updates for this fic once a week on Mondays. If the update is late, it will come on a Wednesday, but I'm really trying to stick to Mondays, so there should be one chapter a week. In short, I will hopefully see you beautiful people next Monday, or you should see my ugly mug a week of Wednesday.

**Thank you all! **For the follows, favourites and reviews! I was honestly surprised that more than one person liked this madness lol. I really hope you enjoyed this chapter and are looking forward to the next. If you could, see that box over there? Drop a little review? They keep the muses from going on strike, and ever since they unionized it's been difficult getting them to do much of anything lol.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER TWO:**

**So The Rock Became an Emerald.**

* * *

_The fountains mingle with the river_

_And the rivers with the ocean,_

_The winds of heaven mix for ever_

_With a sweet emotion;_

_Nothing in the world is single;_

_All things by a law divine_

_In one spirit meet and mingle._

_Why not I with thine?_

_Love's Philosophy, Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1819._

* * *

_Thomas Cromwell's P.O.V_

Every so often, Thomas Cromwell likened himself to a rock in a jeweller's hand. Gritty, unyielding, unspeakably plain. The type of rock one would pass thoughtlessly in a field. Yet, that jeweller's hand, be it God's or his own, toiled away with chisel and love's labour.

Each day, as he awakened, what he once was, all that which he had believed, was whittled away bit by bit. Day by day. Less to less. Until, standing as he was, there was no rock but something meticulous, glinting, and keen. The poor Putney boy of a drunkard inn vendor and blacksmith, now Master Secretary to the King of England.

So the rock became an emerald.

It was an excruciating process, Thomas would admit, and even now he felt the growing pains ache in his joints. He had seen things, done things, many a man would pale at. Perhaps, worst of all, he did not feel remorse for much of it. It was life, he thought, as the wheel of fortune turned, and those who could not balance were doomed to fall. Either rocks became emeralds, or the rocks became coal for the fires, and Thomas knew which he would prefer.

He had lost too. Defeats that still haunted him. Dear Lizzie, with her shy smile and sloping shoulders. Though they had not married for love, they had married for security, her a waylaid widow, her father ailing and their merchant business at risk with no son or husband to inherit, and Thomas with the scent of opportunity cloying at his nostrils. They had both come into the marriage with clear eyes, knowing what each other wanted from the other. Nevertheless, in time, they had come to love one another in a way that one loves a dearest friend. Purely. Not in selfish desire, but in a peaceful routine sort of affection.

It had been more than Thomas Cromwell had ever thought he would get.

Grace and Anne, his sweet daughters, so full of life and warmth, now empty vessels cold in the ground. He still heard their laughter sometimes, though it had been five years, the chitter of little Robin redbreasts in the dead of night, in the few chances, which were rare indeed, Thomas had in resting his weary head in his own estate in Austin Friars and not Hampton.

He had adored those girls more than anything. Possibly more than breath, and after they had been taken from him into the golden gates of St Peter, so soon after God had called Lizzie home too, Thomas thought, truly, that he would not have been long for this world either.

But he had survived. He had breathed. And breathed. And breathed. And worked, and worked, and worked. Tirelessly. Endlessly. Maybe he was not only the rock but the jeweller too. He was a man made from his own hand; Thomas learned afterwards. Not God's. Not the King's. His _own_ man. There had been no title to pass down from father to son for him. No family wealth to fall back on. No name to brandish like a rapier. What Thomas had, what Thomas did, what Thomas _would _do, was all of his own making. He owed nothing to anything but his own mind.

Yes, possibly that made him prideful. A mite arrogantly so. Perhaps, in certain circles, he might even be called devious. Duplicitous. Cutthroat. Merciless. He had heard the Duke of Norfolk whisper worse as he passed him in the hall. Yet, who in this tiring parade of Lords, who were born fat and fruitful and filled, could say all that which they had was truly, honestly, their own? _None._

Surely, this is what divinity tasted like?

And so, through all this, here he was, this self-made man, the runaway who rose beyond any hope or dream, the man who fixed problems, who would rise higher still if all went well, organising a _banquet _of all things. May the Lord Almighty have mercy on his sore soul.

The Privy Council was hectic that day. The chambers were aflood with squires and sculleries, servants and retainers, running scrolls and parchments into the tide of the door, to members of the English gentry that littered the countryside. The saccharine smell of ink hung heavy in the air, only punctuated by the tart smell of tallow from the fresh candles laying in wait for nightfall, and the dusty musk of paper and newly cut quills.

His own men, handpicked, were collected into a far corner, clustered like a murder of crows by a table, by the unlit hearth, exchanging scraps and notes, coins clinking in hand, weights balancing, accounting the King's treasury. The kitchen head, a man always, no matter the time of day, covered in ash and sweating profusely, was parleying with one, waving a list under his scrunched nose. It was likely the food needed for the banquet, demanding twelve pheasants instead of the eight granted.

His Grace, King Henry himself, incongruously, had joined in the pandemonium rather than leave for his morning hunt as he typically did, sitting head at the stately table, drumming a ringed finger against the polished wood as the men around him, bluer of blood than Thomas, the Putney boy, could ever see himself encircled by, yet, the man Thomas, Master Secretary, had to keep peace with, sat around him, bickering this way and that, haggling for the King's attention. Though, it seemed to be far off and away. Imaginably on that hunt after all.

And Thomas?

Thomas was sitting at the far edge of the long table, pheasant quill in hand, ink staining fingers, eyes bleary from a night, once again, lacking of sleep, in yesterday's fine black furs and linens, sorting, of all things, bedchambers. He wanted sleep. He wanted a bath and sleep. He wanted hearty food, a bath, then sleep. Yet, the kingdom, and most crucially, the King's wishes, did not run on his wants.

They seemed to flow contrarywise.

"The Duke of Bedford, along with his wife and two sons, will be arriving a week a Thursday. Yet, the Earl of Lincoln has declined his Grace's offer. The sweating sickness has taken root in his home, and he wishes not to be away from his suffering wife."

Dear, tired, hungry Thomas Cromwell scribbled away. Either how, he did not get where he was now by following blindly his wants, and he would not go higher if he were to change that. He didn't think he could change, anyhow. There was still much work to be done.

Monasteries and bishoprics laden with soiled gold. Catholic discontent soaking the pebbled streets. Murmurs of uprisings ghosting the shores. Princess Dowager of Wales, Catherine of Aragon, resting pretty, away, but no less vocal of her damnation of Henry's church, her divorce, his new marriage, and most importantly, still holding her blood ties to the Spanish Emperor Ferdinand.

Besides, excitingly, Thomas had heard, through his… Lesser known network, there be William Tyndale, partly through his creation of an English bible, a_ protestant_ bible, that Thomas wished deeply to see and read. Perhaps, with the right contacts, the right questions, Thomas might just get that one wish.

If he could get around Sir Thomas More, Chancellor, and prolific Lutheran executioner, that is. A Catholic man got fat with dotage, a Protestant man got lean with labour, and Thomas was quickly becoming trim. Even if that work, currently, was deciding who would sleep where.

"We'll place the Duke in the rooms the Earl of Lincoln has declined. If that pleases your Grace?"

Thomas looked up from his stack of papers, room plans, lists, family accordance's, quill pausing in its incessant scratching, to his Grace's adrift eyes. Tedium soaked the soft flesh of the King's face pale, despite this being Henry's proposal, his banquet, that he had demanded only eleven days ago. Thomas could not fault him.

Where Cromwell was a man of thought and strategy, Henry was of action and result. Many men fell into either or, hardly both. Twas who they were, and perhaps, by complimenting Henry's ethic, filling in for those bits he found tedious, Thomas could find himself a spot here, close to his ear, and in so, the Reformation, all that hard work in hidden alleys and dingy wine cellars, could find a spot along with him. The Church of England may be established, but they still had far to go, those with Luther singing in their hearts. Thomas Cromwell did not want to be a spearhead for it.

He _needed _to be.

Offhandedly, at Cromwell's suggestion, Henry waved that bejewelled hand with a flap of careless fingers. Thomas jotted down the new recommendation, blocking out the appropriate rooms with a dramatic x and initials of the family to be lodged there. If anymore came, he was fearful they would be sheltering in the stables. Feasibly, if he cleared out the lower rooms of the scullery tower, added fresh bedding and new air, he could-

With his head down, quill in hand, Cromwell missed the doors to the Privy Chamber swinging open. The Duke of Richmond, windswept from his hard ride back, speckled with light morning rain, came striding in, pulling his riding gloves off his hands as he slapped them to the chest of his young domestic boy. Kneeling to the King, giving the usual greeting and honours, Richmond eventually took a seat nearby Henry with a screech of a chair leg and an abrupt thud of suddenly added body weight.

"Richmond, what news do you bring?"

Thomas could not determine whether Richmond's face was rather smarmy, or if this was his natural state. Perhaps the former, Thomas concluded. There was an especially smug gleam to his beady pale eyes that morn. So, he had not learned a single lesson. Shame.

Richmond, by the King's own demand, had been bade to ride to the furthest flung Lords of England, to gather the nobles for Henry's banquet. This, of course, by all who had a lick of common sense, could see this was far below Richmond's station. To play at errand boy. Richmond too, when first given the order, had huffed and puffed and bemoaned to any who would listen.

Thomas supposed that is what you got for commenting on the King's archery skills, in hearing distance of that King, and not thinking twice about the criticism you gave. Yet, from the heckled Lordling who had left Hampton, to this peacocking prick, there was a far leap of disposition. One that left Thomas wondering exactly what happened in his ride, his visits, to turn Richmond so tediously haughty.

Maybe Thomas was thinking too hard, as he often did. All it took to put a smile on Richmond's face was a cheap whore down in Barnet. A man of simple mind and simple pleasures was he.

"The Earls of Hertford and Ormonde will both be in attendance. The Earl of Shrewsbury is regretful in his inability to come. Apparently, he is out of country, visiting Geneva and sorting trade disputes. He stated he will arrive at his earliest convenience, but it can be no sooner than two moon tidings. The Duke of Stinchcombe and his family will be-"

Geneva, Shrewsbury says? How… Curious. Thomas had heard of no trade quarrels coming from Geneva in the last months, but he had heard some rather interesting chatter. Wasn't that the city where John Calvin had recently resigned from his chaplaincy? Rumour lit his swift departure, some saying illness, others whispering of conversion to Protestantism, and be it sickness or transition, Thomas thought, really, a nice little letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury might be illuminating.

One can never have too many friends.

Thomas marked off the right families. Hertford and Ormonde joining the lower rooms in the west wing. Nice rooms, but not the best. Shrewsbury could wait, and next to the Stinchcombes, Thomas put a slash. Charles Brandan, a large man, with a greater personality, with the biggest tastes, next only to the King himself, laughed.

"Yes, yes. Not coming. What ruse this time? Plague? Broken thumb? What is it, the excuse, Lord Hardwin last replied with?"

Thomas Boleyn, Baron of Rochford, new to the Privy Council but all too at home in the deceptive politics of it all, drawled back. A sharp grin splitting at his cheeks.

"He said he had been abducted by the Irish."

Laughter echoed in the room. Richmond, strangely, only looked more self-satisfied. Nevertheless, the King was frowning darkly fierce.

"Tis true. I have not seen my good uncles for many a year. Since I was ten, I believe, and they came to celebrate my dear brother Arthur's wedding. This cannot be allowed to stand. I want-"

To be frank, Thomas, on mention of the family, had merely done what he had always done, since his work for the King began, as Worsley once had, and crossed them from plans and thought. The Stinchcombes, in all their own blueblood, made hermits look sociable.

Still, disregarding them completely was, in hindsight, foolish, and Thomas was anything but a fool. Their relation to the King, on Hardwin's side, was only distant. So distant, by cousins marriage Thomas thought, though his genealogy was not the best, it was a moot point in most conversation. Yet, they were _old _blood, some of the oldest in England, and that was the sticking point for the King. As it had been for his father. The Tudors, despite how much they would cry otherwise, were infants to the English nobility.

So they liked to envelop themselves with old blood to make it seem otherwise.

The Stinchcombes had been a high family in the court of William the first. Some tales even had Louis Potter, the founder of the family, as William's bastard brother, having came to England's rocky and wet shores from over France when William came a conquering. From there, they had stayed true, one of the only families that had, no falls to banishments or exiles, orbiting the very highest spheres of society. Nothing like Thomas's own humble, beaten beginnings.

To Henry, they were only fourth or fifth cousins, but that mattered not. What mattered, as it always did, as Thomas knew painfully well, was the _name_. Names had power in England, old names the most, and it was hard, outside Plantagenet, to find one older than Potter. Or, as it had been in France with William, five hundred years ago, Potière. Even if, now, they seemingly despised court, hardly ever showed face in respectable public, and gave every excuse under the sun to lax their duties, their name meant something to English folk.

And, now, it was that name Thomas, so suddenly, found himself very interested in.

To have there name here, openly, at the celebration of Henry's newest wedding, one waving the Lutheran banner, would, when they had been so retreated with Catherine of Aragon, indeed, be a noticeable merit to the English people. People followed names, and many would follow the name Potter. If they were seen to be in favour of Anne Boleyn, and by association Protestantism…

Yet, though they were ghosts at English court, gossip did have it they often visited Scotland, and that titbit of news sat uneasily in the very pit of Thomas's stomach. There was no more a headache inducer, for Thomas Cromwell, than that blasted country. A hotbed of Popish sympathies, Catholic loyalists, and minor uprisings against any and all talk of reformation. This… This is what the Stinchcombes travelled to and from so much, and, idly, Thomas wondered if their own, for this very reason, allegiances lead more to Rome.

Richmond interjected, fearlessly, over the King.

"Actually… The Stinchcombes are riding as we speak, your Grace. They left mere hours after my own departure from their estate. If I were to be bold, I would say they will arrive by nightfall this day."

Brandon scoffed, shocked.

"They come? The Stinchcombes? Potters? By the Lord almighty, your wedding must be blessed Henry if it has pulled the eremites out their cave!"

Blessed… Or intended. The way Thomas saw it, there were two conclusions to be drawn. The Stinchcombes, Potter's, were reformists themselves, and had, after the birth of the English church, come to pledge their support to the King. Or, with their lengthy stays in Scotland, which Thomas was not so quick to dismiss, they were Catholic loyalists, and, in so, plotted to whisper and sow discord in the King's ear. Racking all Thomas's gruelling, back-breaking effort.

In short, there was either powerful friends to make, or hard flames that needed to be snuffed. Quickly. Any which way the apple fell, Thomas had his hands full. Perhaps he should get Cranmer to make audience with them.

Nothing got Catholic's talking then a man in clerical dress.

Richmond's grin turned slick.

"I believe it was their delightful daughter, in truth, that convinced them to come. Her father was in the throes of rambling some excuse or other when she interposed her acceptance on their behalf. I took it and left, waited by the banks of the river, to see if they would follow through. They did, in full carriage and regalia. They come."

Henry looked equally parts perplexed and enraged. Never a good combination.

"My Lord Hardwin has an heir? A daughter? Why am I only being informed of this now?"

Richmond interlinked his hands, thumbs flicking thumbs, as he leant over the table. The sickening grin never once wavered. It only grew. A terrible weed.

"She has just returned from tutoring in Calais, your Grace. I suspect, from her ready acceptance, she hopes to see court for the first time. From what I could see, his Lord Hardwin and his wife appear protective of the girl. I, myself, barely got a look in. But what a look it was."

Thomas fought down the frown wanting to trounce at his brows. It would do no good in showing his hand. Still… Something was not adding up, and Thomas, who was a runaway who played card tricks in the street, before he crossed the channel and joined an army, and then schooled himself in law in Italy, who could do numbers in his sleep, could not get an answer.

Brandon, not surprisingly, became animated. Attentive. Tilting over the table closer to Richmond. Brandon did not see what Thomas saw. _A mystery._ A hidden daughter. Tutoring in Calais and excursions to Scotland. Two Catholic breeding grounds. A precipitous emergance at the most unusual, crucial time, when things were just slipping together. No. Brandon saw the chance at a bawdy joke.

"And what did your hawkish eye see?"

Richmond chuckled.

"She walks in beauty, my friend. Raw and untamed, I would tell! Wild. She does have a rather unusual scar, rendered in the shape of a bolt of lightning on the forehead, but fortunately it does nothing to detract from the face. In fact, it only adds to the shape of her…"

Richmond bent further still, nearly slithering onto the table by his belly, voice dropping lower to a pitch more fitting a dank tavern, not a meeting such as this.

"If I were to see her in moonlight-"

There was a thunderous shriek as the legs of the King's chair scuffed offensively against the wood floor as he came to a towering stand, hands braced on the edge of the polished table dotted with papers, glowering down at Richmond.

"I would like to remind you, Edward Newmont, that be that as it may, beauty or beast, she is _my _cousin, and as such, deference is needed in addressing her."

Richmond's name being barked back at him, from Henry of all people, made the young Lord shrivel back in his seat, face flushing angrily as he stammered, eyes diverting to those around him. No one answered his silent plea for aid. No one would dare. He was absurd to think someone would.

And, possibly, a little, just a tiny bit, Thomas relished seeing the Lord capped at the knees by a few words from their King, the usually glib Richmond lost for words.

"Of course, your Grace. I meant no disrespect."

Henry scanned Richmond with a slit, hooded eye.

"See that you don't."

Oh, Richmond and his tongue. Soon to be Richmond _without _his head if he did not learn to control it. It was less done for love of the girl, this Lady Potter, for Henry did not know she existed seconds prior, but more to do with Henry's own claim. They were _his _cousins, as the King had only just declared, and in so, any slight on them, Henry saw as a slight to himself.

And you did not slight the King and live without consequence.

Lastly, Henry turned his attention to Cromwell, still and silent in the corner, eyes set alight.

"Cromwell, do we have rooms, good rooms, for the Stinchcombes?"

Thomas lowered his head courteously, the perfect picture of a devoted servant.

"I would be freely affable to lend my own personal chambers to them for the duration of their stay. As you know, your Grace, they once belonged to Worsley, and in so, are decorated in the finest silks and furniture's. Too fine for my own taste. I shall take refuge in my old chambers, close by."

And that way, Thomas could keep an eye on these Potter's, these possible Catholic zealots, keep them close by and under watch, and all the while, he only appeared to be going the further mile for Henry's aspirations. Politics was not a chess game, as Worsley once called it, Thomas thought. It was not so one dimensional. It was more a stage play, with dress and script, scenes and lines, acts and tragedies, or comedies, and never once, if the actor was good, was their true face ever seen.

Perhaps Thomas was the best actor of his age then, if this was to be true. The Lord knew some days, as he was today, exhausted and aching and hungry, and feeling that cruel sense of aloneness, that he didn't even recognize his own face. Yet more rarely, he marvelled what it would be like to have someone look beneath that mask, the mask that had been constructed by childhood starvation, beatings, war, the cesspool of law, and now gentry politics, to see…

Well, to see not Thomas Cromwell the lowly Putney boy, who these very Lords around him would spit on, who still did some days, who ran away and hid on a merchant ship to lands unknown simply because it was better than the hell waiting behind him, or Thomas Cromwell, Master Secretary, maker of masks and weaver of barbed games, but to see…

Thomas. Just Thomas.

Nevertheless, that day, Thomas was sure, was long removed. Maybe it had never dawned. Some things, some people, were too far gone.

Henry clapped, beaming at him.

"Perfect, Cromwell! You have my gratitude. Now, shall we talk of-"

A twitchy little boy, in the Boleyn livery, came rushing into the room, wide-eyed and stammering. He stood to attention before the King, and Thomas thought he might cry, or faint, that poor, trembling spluttering boy. He supposed many boys were like that. Nervous. Thomas, however, could not remember himself being such. He had been a scraper on the streets of Putney, getting into fist fights down on the riverbanks before he fled his father, and then he had been a soldier, putting those bruised and split knuckles to better use. Of course, all before he realised a man's greatest weapon was his mind, and took that to Italy to hone.

"You Grace, Her majesty, Queen Anne."

The boy proclaimed as he bowed twice, the dark curls of his bobbing head fluttering into his eyes before he ducked away from the door. He was likely some nephew or cousin, sent to squire under the more prosperous branch of the family tree. He would likely make friends here, well placed friends, and learn the ins and outs of court. Thomas, at his age, which could be only ten, only knew how to dodge a knife and which hidey-holes his father forgot to look in.

Anne Boleyn, decked in pearls and Venetian velvet, came drifting into the room, followed quickly by a sparse few of her Ladies in Waiting. There was no denying that the younger Boleyn sister was a beauty, with her soft hair and dark eyes, but Thomas found it all a bit too… Thorough. _Staged._ There was no lie there, no great deception, but everything, from sapphire earring to rouge tinted cheeks, was planned. Meant to entice. Another act in the great game.

A rose might be beautiful, but in a sea of roses it got nauseatingly dull.

Still, as she fluttered to Henry's side, who sauntered over to lay warm kisses on her cheeks, touch lingering, roses seemed to beguile the King all to well by the swelling of his smile and the glint in his eye. Henry was new in love, and loved anew, and time, as it did with all, would tell if it stuck.

Thomas Cromwell _always _prepared for every possibility.

"Husband, you promised to take me walking in the gardens come noon."

Henry positively beamed at Anne, and there, in the recess of Thomas's heart, he felt a flush of cold wind blowing on the moors of his soul. When Henry loved, he worshiped hard. Ardently. With everything. Yet, when the King hated, he despised equally as much. Thomas, however, thought himself less extreme. Slow. Steady. More stream than the sea storm adoration of the temperamental King. And yet…

Yet, how would it be to love in such a way? Without reservation? Without reason? Without logic or sense or thought? To just simply love for loves fickle sake, with no other intention? To lay yourself bare at another's feet, like a sinner prostrating at the altar, and to be accepted, even enthusiastically embraced, in all for who and what you were? Scars and sins and all? Thomas thought then, only then, did two become one.

Thomas had never had that sort of love, perhaps he was not capable of it, himself split asunder, Putney boy and Master Secretary, rock and emerald, and who, when he was so divided, could accept one, let alone both? None, he thought. And, as that terrible cold wind circled his chest, around his heart, he thought it for the best.

Yet still, he wished.

"Oh, Anne, I did, did I not? Come, we shall go now! Lords, finish planning and inform me of the details this eve. Do you hear the news, wife? You shall meet my dear cousins, the Stinchcombes, this tiding! Uncle Hardwin was always a favourite of mine, he used to make the funniest jokes and-"

Henry was off before any acknowledgment of his order came, telling tales of Potters to a suitably listening Anne. As the door croaked shut, Brandon and Richmond broke apart into whispers, as so many others in the room followed suit. Thomas cleared his throat, just one cough, and that was all it took to get their silence and their undivided attention. Oh, if only Walter, his father with meaty fists and ale stench, could see him now, ordering Lordling's around with the plain wheeze of his throat…

How far he's come indeed.

"Shall we continue? If we are swift we shall finish within the hour and all can rest easy."

With a slow murmur of approval, most aiming to get this over with as quickly as possible to leave, likely to get away from Thomas himself, they slowly but surely got back to work. Thomas glanced down at his notes, caught sight of the slash, that sprawling name, _Potter_, and his jaw clenched, teeth grinding, mind whirling.

Thomas loathed mysteries he could not answer.

* * *

**Thoughts? **

**So, Helena's sure Thomas Cromwell had something to do with, or is the reason, for her 'attempted murder', and Thomas is sure she's either a secret Catholic, or plotting something. Oh, the tangled web of love lol!**

**A.N: **So, I know I said the next update should be Monday, but I finished this a little early and thought you guys might like to read it rather than just having me sit on it. I also wanted to post it as soon as possible because, honestly, this chapter makes me nervous and if I sit on it any longer, I might not post it at all and this story would be dead lol. I thought this chapter was important, before we leap into the story, to get a grounding in Thomas Cromwell's character, Hampton Court, and what is happening with the muggles, before we see him interact with Helena, and more importantly, see how Helena tries to swim this very stormy waters. HOWEVER, Thomas Cromwell is a hard character to write.

He's smart, _extremely_ so, politically savvy, cutthroat to his rivals, but a very loving man to his children, one of the biggest reformers England has ever seen, extremely powerful, and yet he is also of low birth. From certain accounts he was exceptionally dry and quick witted, sarcastic, and everything Henry's court wasn't. Yet, through all this, he some how became one of, if not the, most powerful man in England during the height of his power. So, he's complex, to say the least lol, and I really want to get his character down right. I really don't want to dumb or lessen him, or any other characters, down. In the end, this story isn't just about Helena, but Cromwell too, the Tudor time, Henry and Anne, and to have that, I need to make sure Cromwell's stable in my writing. So this is me dipping my little toe in and hoping, beyond all hope, I may have done at least a little justice to this fascinating man.

Well, rambles over, I hoped you enjoyed this! **Thank you** all for the follows and favourites, and the lovely reviews, be sure to leave one if you have the time, and I will hopefully see you all soon.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER THREE: **

**Necklace of Rope**

* * *

_It lies not in our power to love or hate,_

_For will in us is overruled by fate._

_When two are stripped, long ere the course begin,_

_We wish that one should love, the other win;_

_And one especially do we affect_

_Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:_

_The reason no man knows; let it suffice_

_What we behold is censured by our eyes._

_Where both deliberate, the love is slight:_

_Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?_

_Christopher Marlowe, 1564- 1593_

* * *

_Thomas Cromwell's P.O.V_

They came as dusk was drooping down deeply on Hampton. Twilight a lavish mauve on the grounds and masonry of Henry's court, the moon scarcely a welcoming pallid plump face behind a streak of drifting clouds, with the flickering amber light of scones and candles starting to be lit through the narrow windows.

The carriage passed through the east gate, trolling across the gardens to skirt about the stables in a dramatic arch of filigree gold and decadent oak. The horses flexed under their reigns, muscle swelling and heaving under finely brushed chestnut coats, steam lifting from huffing nostrils in the frigid English air, as hooves stomped in a patter as the carriage rolled to a smooth stop. Above the wagon door facing them, in a plaque of lattice gold-leaf and cobalt, stood a prancing stag on a shield of sapphire.

_The Stinchcombes. _

The door flung open. Out-stepped a large man, as broad as he was tall, trim even in his later years. Thomas, who had never been considered a short man, if placed side by side with this French-stock giant, would reach only his shoulder. The king to his brow. He was dressed impressively in his families colours, blue and gold, though, Thomas was sour to note, the colours were more subdued this night, darker shades than the ostentatious bright Thomas heard the man typically favoured, as if he was in grieving. He held a large hand out, and next to him slunk out, from the gloom of the carriage, a woman as beautiful as her husband was commanding. Small, fine-boned and pale, in a dress as red as poppies, as scarlet as her wave of thick hair, she was everything the man was not. They fit well together, with an ebb and flow, a give and take.

This, Thomas believed, was what Henry and Anne could be in later years. If God was good. If given the right guidance by the right… Hand. Henry and Anne pulled away from the warm shelter of the palace entrance door, having seen their procession to the palace from the sloping bank of the river, and stepped into the dusk as Thomas backed further into the shadow of the wall.

Henry was adamant on greeting the Stinchcombes as soon as they crossed palace gate, along with his new wife, and Thomas, of course, had been instructed to lead the small family to their rooms, _his rooms, _once introductions were made so they could freshen up before supper. No doubt, beyond the curtain of squires and stable boys lining the small eastern gardens, stood other Lords and Ladies, lurking, watching. As Thomas, himself, planned to observe.

So was courtly life.

What could only be Lord Hardwin Potter strolled over in four long strides, Lady Potter at his side, only to pause a few feet away, bent at the waist, and squinted into the dimness. His voice was as loud as one could expect from a man so big. A toothy grin split the Lords face asunder.

"Henry? Is that you my boy? By all! How you have grown! The last I saw of ye, you were barely to my hip, and now, as man, can look me in the eye!"

Henry, never one to stand on graces with those he deemed close, even if that list was ever shifting like night and day, and regardless of the lingering gap of winding time since he last saw Lord Hardwin, crossed the distance with a broad smile, eerily similar to Hardwin's own now that Thomas could see the two so close, on his pleasant face and flung his arms around the man, patting in a bout of three roughly on his back.

"If you made yourself more accessible to me, you would have seen first-hand the change, dear uncle!"

Thomas Cromwell impeded the smirk that wanted to tickle his cheeks with decades of discipline. No one could see him in the shadow of the entrance door, he disbelieved anyone would _bother _to look to see him, but it was always safer to air on the side of caution. Still, the underlying bite to Henry's tone soothed somewhat the worry of the unpredictability of the Stinchcombes that had blanketed Cromwell only moments prior.

Henry, as most knew, did not like _not_ getting his own way. If he wished for his uncle to be present at court, to Henry, his uncle should be there. Forthwith. Worse still, Henry loathed not _knowing._ Lord Hardwin had spent years sending excuses. Thin, feeble excuses. Even Henry could see that.

Perhaps, Thomas needed not be concerned with Stinchcombe's influence at court at all. Not by the way small, angry red splotches broke out on Hardwin's high cheekbones, the roll of his jaw as he chewed words like gristle from bone, biting back irritation. As Henry did not like not getting his own way, it seemed the elder Potter didn't like being questioned. Certainly, it was the Plantagenet blood that gushed through both their veins. No one quite had a temper like a Plantagenet.

And then Lady Lolanthe Potter stepped in.

"Blame Hardwin not. Tis my fault. I have… I have been ailing these last decades. Too ill for far travel. My loving husband was pained to be from my side should the tidings turn for the worse. For a while we were not… sure I would make it another season. If my husband has done anything wrong, it is to be too good of a husband to me. Please do not hold that against him, your Grace."

And all anger seeped from Henry like sap from a burst tree trunk. Pulling away from Hardwin, his face now lax in soft disquiet, Henry regarded Lolanthe, fragile, slender, pale Lolanthe, with a kind eye as he tenderly laid his hands upon her shoulders.

"You should have told me so. I have the best doctors in the country and I could have sent aid. I could have had a carriage bring you to Hampton and-"

Lolanthe smiled lightly. Thomas, however, scanned her with a keen gaze. There was a slight bruise of blue underneath her large, watery eyes. An absence of flush to her cheeks. A frailty to her stature that reminded Cromwell of baby birds. No. He didn't think they were lying. Not about the ailment, at the very least. Hardwin's rowdy and unruly laughter rang out across the courtyard like bells being rung for mass, causing a murder of crows to take flight from their home in the Ash tree.

"We needn't trouble your Grace. She is well now! All is well! And this be a blessed day as our family stands, once again, as one!"

Henry, begrudgingly, laughed a lot like Hardwin.

"Here, here! Now, come, meet my wife."

Dutifully, Anne strode to Henry's flank, wreathed in a pearl gown and emerald crown that made her shimmer and shine in the fire light of the palace behind them, more jewel and velvet than flesh and bone. Hardwin's bow was flamboyant, French in the way his wrist flicked as he doffed his feathered cap. Perhaps they had not lied about being in France either, then.

Thomas frowned.

"My Queen."

Anne's responding smile was gracious, open, and generous. Prideful too. A hue of arrogance tinting the curl of her lip. Thomas did not begrudge her this. Against the odds stacked against her, with all that hard work so obviously put in for Henry to chase, she was finally reaping the profits.

She was now queen of England and Wales. From rumoured courtesan at French court, to queen of her own kingdom, that was a high climb for anyone to make. Especially one as new to the courtly world as the Boleyn's. That, unquestionably, did things to ones ego. Perhaps, only perhaps, in a peculiar way, Thomas felt a spark of kinship for the woman then. He knew all too well the perils of the great ascent.

"My Lord, my Lady."

Gracefully, Anne bowed her head back, and just as Thomas began to wonder, Henry voiced his query.

"I hear I have a cousin stashed away? Where be she?"

Hardwin scowled and squinted around the courtyard with a slashed eye.

"She has not arrived? She went ahead of us by horseback."

Anne nearly choked.

"Horseback?"

Horseback? Horseback? Suddenly, there seemed to be an echo. Horseback? Henry demanded. A squire boy who was not as capable in the art of eavesdropping as he so evidently thought he was reverberated it back to the stable boy at his side, who in turn squeaked it out into the falling night like a piglet with its twisted tail trampled on. A Lady riding across country on horseback? Nonetheless, Lady Potter didn't appear so stunned.

"The wheelhouse was too cramped for our Helena. She is not one easily contained; you see. We thought, with a few guards, as we were nearing Hampton horseback would be better. Now I see we may have made a misstep. She should have been here hours ago."

Henry went to call for his own guards, waving over the men posted at the gates with a flap of his hand, perhaps to scratch together a hasty search party, but their backs were spun as they cranked the wheel for the portcullis to open.

"Arrival! Six Riders! Bearing Stinchcombe heraldry!"

As if the mere mention could summon the being itself, on horseback came a carnival of men attired in the azure and gold of the Potter's, the stag embroidered upon their left breast proudly, fur cloaks fluttering behind them in the gust kicked up by clomping hooves and wind. And there she was, piercing through the five riders, spearing through on a midnight mare to take lead, could only be this elusive Helena Potter.

She was like a burst of sunlight in night, a red comet stretching through a blackened, dead sky, her long braid whipping about her back like the tail of a scorching shooting star. More cosmic entity than woman. Thomas could see the glint of her smile under the passing torches as she rode through the entry path, caught a glimpse of taupe freckles dusting a tiny, sloping nose, dimples in pleasingly flushed cheeks, and eyes the colour of the rolling English hills. Green and wild and _alive_.

She road close, too close, and tugged tight on the reigns as the horse came to a snorting stop right beside Hardwin and Lolanthe. Close to the castle, the light lit her up in a fiery halo. She was a clash of colour, was Thomas's only thought. Bright even in the gloom. Almost too brilliant to look at. Summer swathed in mortality. Pale, flushed, freckled, hair the colour of a bonfire, and eyes too green, there didn't seem to be a part of her that was not extreme in some sense or other.

Sharp featured like those aged heathenistic Roman statues of gods and goddesses in Rome Cromwell had saw himself in his tour and teachings, slight, tiny even, on horseback, she somehow contrarily contained both her mother's delicate nature with the inferno of her father's capturing charisma. She was long limbed like her father, supple and nimble, but delicate, as if she were iron draped in silk. A nymph. That's what she reminded Thomas of in that moment, a nymph ran free of Pan's forests.

Yanking off her pair of riding gloves, she pole-vaulted herself off the horse in a polished swing, and shirked the cloak from her back, slinging it haphazardly over her arm. She was… She was… She was dressed in _breeches_. Leather _breeches_. Thick boots. Tanned doublet, white shirt sleeves peeking through the sleeves where they attached to chest. Not a jewel in sight. No pin. No hair clip. No crown or diadem. No necklace or ring. Nothing but leather and linen.

She was dressed like a common man.

More so, instead of handing her gloves or cloak to her servants, who were now only descending from their own horses, as most Lords or Ladies did, she kept them to herself. She was not beautiful in Anne's way. Anne was smooth and flowery. A rose in bloom. She was not beautiful in Lolanthe's sense, the kind from old knight tales of chivalry and epics. Helena Potter was hard, a paradox of pigment and scale… An artist's mad musings, be them divinely or diabolically bestowed, rendered impossibly in sunbeams. No. Not beautiful. Perhaps a little breath-taking.

When she spoke, gaze sliding to Hardwin, still smiling that damned splendid dimpled smile, her voice was darker and gruffer than any, save Hardwin or Lolanthe, expected. Smoke and shadow with a hint of a roll to her accent.

"Sorry I'm late. I accidentally made way to the castle down the way. Hertford? Yes, there, and it wasn't until I had already had supper that I realised it was neither the court nor the Lord, Roger, was king. So, where is this king, then? Inside?"

Unabashedly, she nodded towards the door, Scottish brogue peaking at the hard consonants of king. Helena must have spent a fair while in the place to pick up the accent so. She even went as far as to make way inside with long, sure steps, even without an invitation to enter. Cromwell had not heard Henry laugh as freely before as he did then, standing in the cold, dismissed by a sprite of a girl.

"The king is standing before you. So is your Queen."

Helena squinted, much like her father, between Henry and Anne, cut a puzzled look to Hardwin and Lolanthe, and upon spotting their slight nods of affirmation, she flushed an almost frightening red. She definitely had the Tudor skin and hair. She looked more the king's sister than his own blood, Margaret, did. She bowed, and there it was again, another incongruity.

Wonky, unsteady, bent knee but straight abdomen, it was a poor bow if Cromwell had ever saw one. What did she learn from her tutor in France if not etiquette? For, Thomas was sure, no good man or woman would teach that… Wobble, as a bow to anyone, let alone a Lord's daughter.

"Your Grace, my Queen."

Henry crossed the distance and lifted her up from that horrendous half-stoop, chuckling all the way.

"None of that!"

He embraced her, and Helena was swift to hug back, grinning fiercely. When he stepped back, for Anne to greet her with an incline of her head as was customary, Helena was in movement, snatching the queen up in another embrace, likely taking Henry's lead. Thomas nearly swallowed his tongue as she, very clearly, lifted the queen… The _queen _off her feet and sort of… Jiggled her in the air before plonking her back onto solid ground. Anne gave an undignified squeal before laughter, bubbling like a brook, escaped her lips.

"You all must be hungry from your travels. Come, we shall dine together in the hall before you rest."

Henry proclaimed as he began to usher the Stinchcombes into the palace, their men and the stable boys now emptying and discharging the carriage and wagons. He turned. He spotted Cromwell in the shadows. His eyes lit up. Of course, luck would not be on Thomas's side that night.

"Ah, how poor of my manners! This, cousins, is my Master Secretary, Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell, the Stinchcombes."

Four sets of eyes sluggishly tumbled to his murky form. Thomas took a single step forward, into the light, and inclined his head politely. Lord and Lady Potter mirrored him, however… Helena's own smile fell and shattered off her face with the poise of glass dropping on stone. That is to say, with none at all. She did not bow. She did not move. She said nothing. She only stared at him.

Fiercely.

Thomas did something he didn't often do. He shuffled in his stance.

"You will be staying in my suite in court. I hope you find it to your ease and comfort."

Hardwin's mouth opened, but it was Helena's voice, cool and hard, like marble, that sprang between them like poison ivy vines.

"We will, will we? How… _Fortuitous_."

Hardwin barked.

"Helena."

A muscle in her slanted jaw jumped in a set of three before she trundled it out. Reluctantly, Thomas could tell it was unwilling by the severity of her rigid shoulders, the way her eyes refused to dip from his, bowed her head.

"Forgive me, riding has tired my mind. Master Cromwell."

She was a pathetic liar. Her voice was too emotive. Her face too expressive. Her body spoke more than words could verbalize. Cromwell considered her with eyes slick and pitched. If it was an enemy she wished to find, she had outmatched herself by letting her too bright eye rest on him.

"Lady Potter."

Cromwell drawled back, just as biting, cold and harsh. A girl tutored in France, yet knew no etiquette. An English Lady with a Scottish accent. The inexplicable shift to chill at seeing Cromwell, a protestant man… Well, it was not as if Thomas was expecting them to ride in with rosaries around their necks, was it now? Catholics? Perhaps. Friends? Even less probable. Either way, popish or not, it was best he kept his eye on them, and better still that they would be bedding so close so he could do so discreetly.

Henry, not noticing the change of atmosphere, though his queen did have a demure little frown between her arching brows, clapped his hands together and called for everyone to head inside. Anne looped her arm through his offered elbow, Lolanthe entwining with Hardwin, and Helena, who took a diversion to… _Help _the servants, ceased last moment and backtracked at Hardwin's quick, almost frantic, shake of his head.

The king and queen were first inside, followed by the Lord and Lady Stinchcombe, and as Lady Helena went to follow, uncontrollably, Thomas found himself addressing her in a hushed voice. Mad musings, indeed.

"Be careful in the future, Lady Potter. Riding, alone, in the dark… Terrible things can happen to young, foolish, pretty heads."

Thomas would never be able to say, not even in years to come, what made him say such a thing. If it were to feel her eyes on him once more, to see her blush so charmingly again in anger, or, because, he thought she had not been in Hertford at all, though it would be easy enough to check, he would never know. Maybe it was all three. Cromwell was not normally a man of fickleness and no self-moderation. He decidedly did _not _like it. Her eyes sparked fire in the night, retort given through gritted teeth, half snarl.

"Perhaps we all need to be careful of our heads, Master Cromwell. I heard they are so easily lost around here, and necklaces of rope are ten to a dozen. I think that thin neck of yours might fit one."

What a quick, sharp little tongue peeping out through those keen pearly teeth she had. Irrationally, Thomas, for the first time in so long, went to say something on instinct instead of well thought out planning. Be it curse, slander, threat or scripture, he did not know. Possibly, in the end, he wanted to laugh. There was a sudden tightness, airy still, to his chest. Smouldering. He would never know. For, his mouth opened, she was gone, a flame in the open night drifting away, leaving him in the damp dark. Thomas bit his tongue until he tasted copper. Something was amiss with the Stinchcombes.

Something was _wrong_ with Helena Potter.

* * *

**Thoughts?**

**A.N: **As I have been rightly corrected, the name is not Lolanthe, but Iolanthe. My bad, sorry guys. However, I'm keeping Lolanthe as the name because, honestly, I just prefer it lol. **So, what did you all think of their first meeting? Good? Bad? Ugly? **I'm also sorry for the late update, but I really, really wanted to get the meeting right as it, well, springboards everything else.

**Thank you all **for the follows, favourites, and always the best bit, the reviews! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and if you could drop a few words, it would be greatly appreciated.


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